Calypso was already halfway toward the enormous ice slide when Gerda caught her sleeve.
“Please,” Gerda said. “Kai first.”
Calypso looked at the hand gripping her, then at Gerda’s face. The excitement in her expression faded just enough to show that she understood this was not another curiosity.
Across the frozen hall, the Snow Queen watched them without moving.
“Kai is here?” Calypso asked.
Gerda nodded. “She has him.”
The Snow Queen’s gaze sharpened.
“I have no one,” she said. “Those who remain in my palace do so because they have not yet found their way out.”
Gerda released Calypso and turned toward her. “You know exactly what I mean.”
The Queen lifted one pale hand. Frost whispered across the floor between them, tracing branching patterns through the blue ice.
Calypso crouched to examine it.
“Interesting.”
“Calypso.”
“Yes, yes. Kai.”
She stood again, though her eyes lingered on the ice slide towering behind the Queen. It curved upward along the wall before disappearing through an arch high above them.
Gerda followed her gaze and immediately stepped between Calypso and the slide.
“No.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were thinking very loudly.”
For the first time, the Snow Queen almost smiled.
Then a faint sound reached them.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Gerda froze.
She knew that sound.
Not footsteps. Not cracking ice.
Small pieces being moved across a hard floor.
“Kai.”
She ran.
The sound came from beyond a row of tall frozen pillars. Gerda slipped between them, nearly falling as the floor sloped downward. Behind her, Calypso followed at a much less urgent pace, while the Snow Queen seemed in no hurry at all.
The chamber beyond was smaller and almost empty.
Kai sat in the center.
Pieces of ice surrounded him in a careful pattern. Some were triangles, others squares or narrow shards. His fingers were red from the cold, but he seemed not to notice.
Gerda stopped so suddenly that Calypso nearly walked into her.
“Kai.”
He moved another piece.
Tap.
Gerda hurried forward and dropped beside him.
“Kai, it’s me.”
His eyes lifted to hers.
There was recognition in them, but it felt distant, as though he were looking at her through a thick window.
“You shouldn’t touch the pieces,” he said.
Gerda stared at him. “I came all this way to find you.”
“I’m nearly finished.”
“With what?”
Kai looked down.
The pieces formed a word that was not yet complete.
Calypso leaned over Gerda’s shoulder.
“What happens when he finishes?”
The Snow Queen had entered the chamber behind them.
“He earns his freedom.”
Gerda spun around. “Then tell him the answer.”
“That would make it my answer.”
“He’s freezing.”
“He no longer feels the cold.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
Kai reached for another shard.
Calypso caught his wrist before he could pick it up.
He finally showed a stronger reaction.
“Let go.”
Calypso studied him with open curiosity. “You truly don’t feel it?”
“No.”
She touched two fingers to the back of his hand.
Gerda slapped her hand away.
“He is not another experiment.”
Calypso looked genuinely surprised.
Then her expression changed.
“All right.”
She knelt opposite Kai.
“Why are you arranging these?”
Kai glanced toward the Snow Queen.
“She said if I make the word, I can leave.”
“And you believe her?”
“Yes.”
Calypso looked at the Queen.
“Will you keep your promise?”
“Yes.”
That answer came without hesitation.
Gerda hated that it made things harder. A lie could be challenged. A trick could be exposed. But the Snow Queen seemed perfectly willing to let Kai walk away if he solved whatever impossible puzzle she had placed before him.
Calypso examined the scattered pieces.
“Then this is simple.”
Gerda’s hope surged.
“You know the answer?”
“No.”
Her hope vanished.
Calypso picked up a thin shard and turned it between her fingers.
“But I know a badly designed test when I see one.”
The Snow Queen’s eyes narrowed.
Calypso continued before she could respond.
“He is cold enough that his hands barely work. He has been staring at the same problem for so long that he no longer questions the problem. And apparently no one has told him he may stand up.”
Kai frowned.
Gerda looked at him.
“You can stand up.”
“I have to finish.”
“Who said you have to stay sitting while you do it?” Calypso asked.
Kai looked toward the Snow Queen.
The Queen said nothing.
Slowly, Kai rose.
Several ice pieces slid from his knees.
His expression changed.
Only slightly, but Gerda saw it.
For the first time, he was looking at the entire pattern instead of one piece at a time.
Calypso noticed too.
“There,” she said. “Different angle.”
Gerda moved beside Kai.
“What do you see?”
He stared at the floor.
“Nothing.”
But his voice was less certain.
Gerda took his hand.
He tried to pull away.
She held on.
“You used to hate puzzles.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did. You threw one under a cupboard because you couldn’t find a corner piece.”
“I was little.”
“You blamed the cupboard.”
Kai blinked.
Gerda smiled despite the ache in her chest.
“You said it stole the piece.”
A tiny crease appeared beside his mouth.
Not quite a smile.
But close.
The Snow Queen saw it.
The frost spreading across the floor stopped.
Calypso looked from Kai to Gerda and seemed to understand something that had escaped her until then.
“The puzzle isn’t the important part,” she said.
Gerda shook her head. “Kai is.”
“No. I mean the Queen’s puzzle.”
Calypso stood and faced the Snow Queen.
“You didn’t freeze him into this state all at once, did you?”
The Queen remained silent.
Gerda looked between them.
“What are you saying?”
Calypso pointed toward the ice pieces.
“He keeps choosing the puzzle.”
Kai’s hand stiffened inside Gerda’s.
“I have to finish it.”
“Why?” Calypso asked.
“To be free.”
“And what will you do when you are free?”
Kai opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Gerda squeezed his hand.
“Come home.”
Kai looked at her.
The distant calm in his eyes wavered.
“Home.”
“Yes.”
For a moment, Gerda thought that would be enough.
Then Kai looked back at the unfinished word.
“I need one more piece.”
He pulled free and dropped to his knees again.
Gerda’s face fell.
Calypso turned sharply toward the Snow Queen.
“What did the shard do to him?”
The Queen’s answer was quiet.
“It changed what he could see.”
Gerda remembered the shard the Queen had described—the one that could freeze a heart. She looked at Kai’s eyes, then at the pieces spread around him.
“Can it be removed?”
The Queen did not answer immediately.
That hesitation mattered.
Calypso stepped closer.
“You know how.”
“I know what cannot do it.”
“What?” Gerda asked.
“Force.”
Gerda looked down at Kai.
He was moving pieces again.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Calypso folded her arms. “Convenient.”
“It is not convenience. Break the ice around a frozen branch and you may break the branch with it.”
Gerda’s eyes filled with anger. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
The Queen looked at her hand, still reaching toward Kai.
“What you were already doing.”
Gerda understood.
She sat beside him again.
This time she did not touch the puzzle.
She talked.
She reminded Kai of the window at home and the roses they had watched grow between their houses. She reminded him of summer rain, muddy shoes, warm bread, and the afternoon they had argued over whether a crooked wooden box could be called a sled.
Kai kept working.
At first.
Then his movements slowed.
Gerda mentioned the roses again.
Kai’s fingers stopped above a piece of ice.
“They’ll be dead now,” he said.
“No.”
“It’s winter.”
“Winter ends.”
Kai looked at her.
Something wet appeared at the corner of one eye.
He touched it as though he had never seen a tear before.
The tear slipped onto the ice.
A sharp crack sounded.
Gerda jumped.
Kai clutched his chest.
Calypso moved toward him, but the Snow Queen raised a hand.
“Wait.”
Kai gasped.
A tiny dark splinter fell onto the floor.
It landed among the clear puzzle pieces.
Gerda stared at it.
The Snow Queen did too.
Then Kai began to shiver.
Not gently.
His whole body shook as if every moment of cold he had failed to feel had returned at once.
Gerda wrapped her arms around him.
“Kai!”
He grabbed her coat.
“Gerda?”
This time her name sounded different.
Present.
Frightened.
Alive.
She held him tighter.
“Yes. I’m here.”
Kai looked around the frozen chamber in confusion.
“How did you—”
His eyes found the Snow Queen.
Memory rushed across his face.
He moved closer to Gerda.
The Queen did not approach.
Calypso picked up the dark splinter from the floor.
Gerda immediately snapped, “Don’t.”
Calypso stopped.
She looked at the shard, then at the frozen likeness of herself visible through the pillars in the next chamber.
For once, curiosity did not win.
She placed the shard back on the floor.
“Fair point.”
Gerda helped Kai stand.
His legs nearly gave way, and she caught him.
“We’re leaving.”
Kai looked down at the unfinished puzzle.
Gerda followed his gaze nervously.
The Snow Queen had promised his freedom only if he completed the word.
Kai had not completed it.
Calypso seemed to reach the same conclusion.
She stepped between the Queen and the children.
“He didn’t finish.”
“No,” the Queen said.
Gerda tightened her arm around Kai.
The Queen walked toward the scattered pieces.
With the tip of one shoe, she pushed a single shard across the floor.
It slid into the empty space.
The pattern became whole.
Kai stared.
“What does it say?” Gerda asked.
Kai looked at the completed word for a long moment.
Then he shook his head.
“I don’t care.”
The Snow Queen looked at him with an expression Gerda could not read.
“That is also an answer.”
The great doors behind them opened.
Warm-colored daylight appeared far beyond the frozen corridor.
Gerda almost laughed.
She guided Kai toward it.
Calypso followed for three steps.
Then stopped.
Gerda knew why before she even turned around.
Calypso was staring at the ice slide.
“No.”
Calypso pointed toward the open doors. “You have Kai.”
“Yes.”
“The immediate crisis has therefore concluded.”
“No.”
“I fail to see the ambiguity.”
“You are not going down that slide.”
Calypso looked offended. “Why would I go down it?”
Gerda relaxed slightly.
Then Calypso added, “It clearly goes up.”
Gerda stared at her.
Kai, still shivering beside her, gave a weak laugh.
It was the first real laugh Gerda had heard from him since finding him.
Even the Snow Queen turned toward the towering structure.
Calypso walked to its base and placed one hand against the polished ice.
“How does one reach the top?”
“You do not,” the Queen said.
Calypso’s eyes brightened.
Gerda groaned.
That had been exactly the wrong answer.
“Why not?” Calypso asked.
“Because there is nothing there for you.”
“That is impossible to know without going there.”
The Queen regarded her for a long moment.
Then she pointed toward a narrow staircase carved almost invisibly into the wall.
Gerda could not believe it.
“You’re helping her?”
“I am answering her question.”
Calypso was already climbing.
Gerda called after her, “We are leaving!”
“Yes!” Calypso called back.
“That means you too!”
“I understood the sentence!”
Kai leaned against Gerda and watched Calypso disappear higher into the palace.
“Is she always like this?”
Gerda sighed. “I hope not.”
The Snow Queen walked toward the frozen copy Calypso had left behind. It remained perfectly still inside its clear shell, preserving the exact moment Calypso had allowed the cold to claim her.
Gerda noticed the Queen studying it.
“She said she wanted to keep it.”
“I heard her.”
“Are you going to let her?”
The Queen touched the ice with one finger.
A thin line of frost traveled across its surface.
“It is hers.”
Gerda considered arguing that a frozen copy of oneself was not the sort of thing anyone needed.
Then a distant shout echoed from above.
“GERDA!”
Gerda closed her eyes.
Calypso shouted again.
“I FOUND THE TOP!”
A second sound followed.
A deep mechanical crack rolled through the palace.
The Snow Queen looked up.
For the first time, genuine alarm crossed her face.
Gerda saw it.
“What was that?”
The Queen was already moving.
Kai straightened.
Another crack thundered overhead.
A shower of tiny ice crystals fell from the ceiling.
The Queen stopped beneath the archway and stared upward.
“That slide,” she said slowly, “has never been used.”
Gerda’s stomach dropped.
From somewhere high inside the palace came Calypso’s delighted voice.
“THAT EXPLAINS THE LEVER!”
The Queen vanished up the staircase.
Gerda looked at Kai.
Kai looked at Gerda.
The open doors to freedom waited only a short distance away.
Then the entire ice slide shuddered.
Gerda tightened her grip on Kai’s hand.
They had come to the palace to bring him home. He was free, the shard was out, and nothing stood between them and the exit.
Except, apparently, Calypso.
Kai glanced toward the staircase and then back at Gerda.
“We can’t leave her, can we?”
Gerda watched another glittering sheet of frost fall from the ceiling.
“No,” she said. “But this time, she is absolutely carrying her own frozen statue.”
